Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

Since her appointment as local food inspector, Mrs. Sprague has also been made resident food inspector by the state pure food commissioner.

The work of the food inspector showed conclusively that the education of the public had only begun and that in order to make her labors most efficient the pure food committee must devise means of keeping the subject before the people. The greatest menace during the late summer and autumn is the house fly, and no work along the line of sanitary food supply can be effective that does not emphasize the necessity of doing away entirely with the breeding places of this deadly pest. Grand Forks has a garbage ordinance which, if strictly enforced, would go far toward accomplishing this end.

However, no matter how good the law, public opinion must be back of it to make it effective, and education must be administered in large and frequent doses. The newspaper and motion-picture theater are excellent teachers, since they reach the largest audience, and the one most difficult to interest. Through the courtesy of the Grand Forks Herald, a fly-page was edited by the pure food committee in August, when the fly season is at its height and the dread of typhoid is strong with the parents of the less fortunate classes. Yellow journalism of the most lurid type was resorted to, and so black was the little pest painted in both prose and verse that the public seemed roused to the situation.

Closely following the press exposé of the fly came the climax of the season’s campaign for pure food and sanitary conditions. The public-spirited proprietor of one of the motion-picture theaters gave the pure food committee the use of the theater with all proceeds for one day for the presentation of the fly-pest film....

As a result of complaints from dairymen and confectioners that bottle and ice cream cans were returned in bad condition, cards with hints to housewives were printed and distributed by milkmen to their customers.

The subject of a municipal slaughter house was brought before various organizations and committees were appointed to coöperate in a city-wide effort to solve the problem. The subject of a city incinerator for the disposal of garbage was also agitated.

The pure food committee, through the courtesy of the Minnesota food commission, secured the pure food exhibit of the commission, placing it in a conspicuous place on the grounds during the state fair, with a lecturer in charge. This proved a great attraction, and the space in front of the exhibit was crowded with people from the rural districts who had heard little of the new gospel of pure food. The local food inspector visited each food concession as it was being placed, and explained the pure food law, with a hint that it was to be enforced on the grounds during the fair. Several later visits were made to the concessions, and suggestions were made and many bad practices discovered and stopped. For example, lemonade must be made from lemons rather than from acid powder was one order enforced. It was noticeable that the eating places having screens were the most popular.

The second season of pure food education is naturally less strenuous for the committee, but not so for the inspector, who, if she be the woman for the place, continually finds new problems to be solved. No small part of her time must be devoted to receiving complaints and assisting merchants in planning ways of complying more completely with the law. She should be kind, tactful, firm and resourceful, with a touch of the Sherlock Holmes quality.

It is well to invite the members of the city council and board of health to take an early spring drive to the city dumping grounds and slaughter houses—early enough to find conditions at their worst.

No one factor can make for the health of a community more surely than a strict enforcement of the pure food laws. This enforcement by a special officer makes it possible for bad practices of all kinds to be traced and eliminated, either by persuasion or fine. It makes it possible for the poor to be supplied with clean, pure food, and this is really the greatest good that can come of the law, since the well-to-do, who buy at large, well-kept stores on main business streets, where neatness is an asset, can more easily influence the food merchants. The poor, buying in small quantities, patronize the small, ill-kept store in the vicinity of the home, and have little influence. With food inspectors, one store is as rigidly scrutinized as another, and the small buyer at the small, out-of-the-way store has equal protection with the large buyer at the large store in the center of business.